I currently attend a top 20 school according to Forbes, a top 30 according to US News.
Reason for transferring: want to go into sustainability, and my school’s program is lacking in that field (environmental science/urban planning). It’s a bummer because I truly love my school and the students there.
Stats:
-4.0 uw high school GPA, valedictorian
-3.9175 college GPA
-34 ACT superscore
Schools I’m applying to (sophomore transfer, would repeat part or all of sophomore year):
Brown, Pomona, Northwestern, Yale, Cornell (?)
I’m active on campus and am involved in the newspaper and a couple sustainability clubs. I also do a work study.
How would applying for FA affect my chances? I’ve heard that it’s harder to get in as a transfer if you ask for FA.
Please don’t repost a second thread in the same place after 15 minutes, it makes you look really needy.
Anyways, every single one of the schools you’re applying to is a lottery, the transfer acceptance rates are extremely low. You might make it, but you should also include a couple easier to get into schools with your intended program.
As for the FA, do you know whether those schools meet full need for transfer applicants?
@philbegas thanks for the response.
I’d rather not add any more schools to my list as I would rather stay at my current university over any others (I could possibly find a way to make my own curriculum through an interdisciplinary track, which would allow me to stay at my school and not transfer). At this point, the only school worth transferring to would probably be Brown due to it’s open curriculum and great environmental science/studies program. I think Brown is need aware, so it wouldn’t meet full need for transfers. My hesitance toward Brown, though, is that, based on the research I’ve done, its grads make much less money on average than the grads from my current school do. These are only averages though, so I’m not sure if they are really reason enough not to at least apply and see what happens.
@potentialtransfer2018 Brown is need-aware, but it also does meet full financial need if you’re accepted. To be perfectly honest, if you have high financial need, cross out Brown (Unless you have some sort of scholarship that will cover most of the tuition.). The admission rate is already abysmall, add in the fact that they’ll be considering how much you can pay… It just doesn’t work out. Take that one out, and add a need-blind meet full need college.
Why do you want to repeat sophomore year?
@AGoodFloridian my financial need isn’t that high, as my family’s income puts us in the top 1%, but we spend a lot of what we make (my brother is in rehab and it costs upwards of $30,000 a month). I did qualify for aid at my current institution, although not much. Would I have a much better chance at Brown if I didn’t apply for aid? If I do, I probably wouldn’t apply for aid (and most likely wouldn’t get any anyway).
As @philbegas stated, these schools are a crapshoot for anybody applying. While you may not want to perhaps go down a rank or two from your current institution, there are great universities with environmental science / urban planning studies that while not as prestigious as the ones you want to apply to, they might offer equal (or better) curricula for the field you may be interested in.
Being able to major / take classes for your desired field is may be way better than to take an interdisciplinary track.
OP, if you’re transferring because you want to go to a school that actually has your major, then it seems like a poor decision to not add on a few easier schools that have your major.